


Every Thousand Miles or So

by thephilosophersapprentice



Category: Ender Series - Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game - All Media Types
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Ender didn't deserve any of this, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Recovery, Self-Hatred, brother-sister bonding, it won't be easy but we'll get there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 13:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10832262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephilosophersapprentice/pseuds/thephilosophersapprentice
Summary: After the Bugger War, Ender still has a long way to go. It's getting there that is the question. But they'll take small victories where they can, and eventually, maybe they'll finally find a way. (Drabble/one-shot series. Might explore some dark themes--this is "Ender's Game" we're talking about.)





	Every Thousand Miles or So

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should be working on the Reluctant Empress AU. My old laptop crashed, and I still haven't gotten all my files transferred to my new machine. Please bear with me. I promise to keep working on that one soon.  
> There aren't really any warnings for this chapter, but there might be in future chapters. Remember, this is "Ender's Game" we're talking about.

Ender leaned back into the seat, closing his eyes and letting the music outside the hull wash over him. The sounds of small pieces of rock and debris pinging lightly against the hull, the eerie hum of solar winds over metal, the soft melody of particles pinging against semipermeable shields.

It was beautiful. It spoke to him, quivering across his skin, dancing like cool sunrays, a wash of sparkling water into his blood, whispering in his heart.

Somehow, Ender felt, almost, as if he belonged, as if he was not lost. The universe was singing to him, whispering a cosmic lullaby into the back of his brain.

The thought came to him, for the very first time.

Maybe things will be all right, after all.

He floated up, borne on the swell of the music of the great beyond. Space. The void. It’s not really empty, Ender told himself. There are a thousand angels singing in their silvery, inhuman voices out there. There are comets burning out into brilliant oblivion and meteors leaping from gravity well to gravity well like stones skipped on the surface of a pond. There is light spreading through the emptiness and silence, rays reaching out like fingers to explore places where light has never been before. There are atoms, and molecules, and particles, and electromagnetic radiation. Galaxies swinging in a broad dancing swirl out to the very edges of the universe. I am bathed in the wake of the chariot of the Sun. I’m swimming in the sky. Out here, there are nebulas giving birth to stars and planets, and somewhere, sometime in the distant future, I will be there, still, at home, at peace.

This--this peace, this illusion of happiness and hope--it could be all a dream. But for once, Ender was content to enjoy the dream. For once, his sleep had not been plagued by dreams--of the eye, of cold dead flesh, of insectoid bodies.

Maybe I’ve just invented this world for myself, and outside, the war is still going on. But I don’t have to go out yet. I can stay here, and be left alone. Finally. Maybe I can shape a world all my own, raw matter flowing into my hands, twisting into form like clay, and then...

The stars were calling.


End file.
